Grizzly Man Timothy Treadwell spent 13 summers living among Alaska’s brown bears, convinced he could move among them safely. In October 2003, a bear killed him and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, at their camp in Katmai National Park, and a video camera with its picture blacked out recorded the sound of the attack.
That six-minute recording has haunted people ever since. Few have heard it. Its contents became public largely through the people who listened to it on behalf of everyone else.
A camp that stayed open too long
Treadwell’s routine was well established. Each summer he pitched his tent near salmon streams on the Katmai coast, where brown bears gathered to feed before winter. He filmed them constantly and gave many of them names.
In 2003 he stayed longer than usual, into October. By then the salmon runs were thinning, and bears that had not yet built up enough fat for hibernation were hungrier and more aggressive. Treadwell and Huguenard were camped at Kaflia Bay when they were attacked. The couple were found after an air-taxi pilot arrived to pick them up and realized something was wrong.
Hours before he died, Treadwell filmed a bear diving into a river over and over, hunting for a dead salmon. On camera, he said he felt uneasy around that animal.
What Grizzly Man Timothy Treadwell’s recording captured
Investigators recovered Treadwell’s camera at the site. It had been running during the attack, but the footage was black and held only sound. Alaska State Troopers thought the camera might have been inside a bag, or that the attack happened after dark.
Larry Van Daele, an Alaska wildlife biologist who heard the tape, described what it contains. It opens with Treadwell shouting that he is being attacked. Huguenard is heard opening the tent and urging him to “play dead.” The bear backs off for a short time, then returns.
In the minutes that follow, Treadwell begs Huguenard to hit the animal, and she screams at him to fight. The recording ends with his voice fading out while she is still screaming.
Rangers later killed a 28-year-old brown bear near the camp. Human remains and clothing were found inside it, and tests confirmed they belonged to Treadwell and Huguenard.
Why the bear may have attacked
Nobody knows for certain what set the bear off. Van Daele suggested a combination of factors. The late season meant bears were desperate for food. And when Treadwell moved after playing dead, or when Huguenard tried to help, the movement may have triggered the animal’s instinct to hunt.
He also said her screams may have sounded like a prey animal’s cry, which could have drawn the bear back. The bear dragged her body away, probably meaning to return to it later.
From recovering addict to “Grizzly Man”
Treadwell grew up on Long Island, New York, and loved animals from childhood. In his memoir, Among Grizzlies: Living with Wild Bears in Alaska, he wrote that his mission began in the late 1980s, shortly after he survived a near-fatal heroin overdose. He believed the bears helped save him. From the first time he saw one in the wild, he wrote, he felt his future was tied to theirs.
His fame grew after his death. German director Werner Herzog built the 2005 documentary Grizzly Man from Treadwell’s own footage. In one of the film’s best-known scenes, Herzog listens to the tape through headphones while Treadwell’s friend and former girlfriend, Jewel Palovak, watches his face. Herzog doesn’t play the audio for viewers, and he tells Palovak she should never listen to it and should destroy it.
Herzog also offered a different theory about the black footage. He suggested the lens cap was simply on, meaning the couple may have been about to film another scene when the bear came.
In the film, Herzog also wondered whether the bear Treadwell filmed in the river that last afternoon was the same one that killed him and Amie Huguenard hours later.
